A Moment
by membridget
Summary: What is a moment? Lucy sacrifices herself to save Natsu in such a moment. Read to find out what that moment was. Oh, and who is the small four year old she leaves behind? Is she Natsu's daughter? NaLu and depressing, so sorry.


_Omg, I am such a depressing writer! I almost cried just writing this! I don't own FT and I apologize for any teary eyes at the end._

* * *

There is a moment that everyone experiences. A moment in which you freeze and ask, "What the hell did I do with my life?"

And in that moment, that terrifying moment, everything around you stops. Your hair that the gentle breeze used to toss lays still and it seems that your heart has stopped. Such a moment can come at any time, in any place, on any day. But it's decided to torture you today. Today, a day in which everything was going well, you stop and you question what impact, what achievement, will the world remember you for. Whose life did you change? Whose life did you save? And as you wonder these questions, nothing happens.

The man attacking you stops, frozen midair. Your terrified shriek hangs, mocking you for your weakness. The same weakness that propels you forward, to take the blow for the one you love. And in that single, quiet moment, you wonder if they truly understand the depth of your love for them.

But how can they have even an inkling it exists? You never spoke, you never confessed. You kept the same, depressing friendship for years, trying and failing to be content. Because he's dense and you're a coward, but in that moment, you wish you hadn't been so afraid of rejection. In that moment, you ask, "Why?"

Why is Fate so against you that while in life you could not have ever told your pink haired best friend that you love him, but in death, you could save the same fool?

Why is Destiny so cruel that while you had to watch him happy with someone else, he now sobs as he holds your broken body?

Why, you ask. Shock, fatigue, and above all, love, flow through your body as you stare blankly up at the onyx eyes that captured your heart so long ago. In that moment, you find that you would have done this, sacrificed yourself, over and over again, so that his face will keep grinning and his eyes will keep their childish glint. But at the same time, you feel guilty because you know that this will tear him apart, whether or not he loved you back. Because he's losing his best friend. He's going through what you would have had to had you not pushed him out of the way. In the back of your head, you frown, because this boy, no, this man, got the short stick. He's going to have to live with your death and face it head on because you won't be there to hold him while he's on trains, to laugh with him at his cat's antics, to confuse him with your 'weirdo' ways. And you know that he's going to hurt so badly because you were too weak to take that pain for him.

Instead, in that frozen moment, you took the easy way out. You took the quick and easy way out. Why is the world so against you, you ask, that it would make you realize how very cowardly your sacrifice is? As you take quiet, strained breaths. As you feel the blood seeping out of your body. As you feel his warmth, his kindness, his sorrow, and his anger. As you hear him ask you, "Why? Why for me? What made you save my life at the expense of yours?"

You can't answer him. He shouldn't know that all those years ago, that one night you spent together meant more to you than it ever did to him. You can't force the words out, that he has a child, that even though you left the guild, you followed him. Rash hope that he would notice you, and the child, kept you nearby. So close that you heard the fight and ran to his aid.

So all you whisper is, "Take care of her. I'm sorry."

And as he cradles your broken body, as his white haired wife looks on with sorrow and thanks, as that moment passes, a small child's cry is finally heard. A small child, whose own moment just arrived. A small, pink haired girl. And you have to look at her, to see your child one more time. And one more word erupts from your red mouth. "Please."

And that little girl, the small child that you bore for months without help, that you raised for four years, cries for the first time. She runs up to you with tears flying and she cries out frantically for you to stay, that you're stronger, asking why.

"Why, Mommy?"

And a tear slips down your cheek as your mouth forms the words that won't come and as you take your last breath as Lucy of Fairy Tail.

"Because I'm weak."

* * *

Natsu holds Lisanna's hand and the small girl's hand as they watch the coffin lowered into the ground. The little girl doesn't cry. She watched her mother die, this is just a formality. The brave, sad child walks away from him and stands in front of the grave, speaking loud enough for all of Fairy Tail to hear.

"My mommy said that everyone has a moment in which they have to choose to be strong or to be weak. A moment in which time freezes and you choose death or life. She had her moment. She ran to the rescue of an old friend, one who'd forgotten about her, as she thought. She ran to him and sacrificed herself in a way that she told me time and time again never to do unless absolutely necessary. Because by doing so, you leave the person that you love behind and you leave them to wallow in guilt and pain. You leave them to tears and hollowness and you should never, ever, do that to someone. But sometimes, she said, it was alright to do it. Only when you knew that whatever pain they felt, would be less than the pain you would have felt to see them go. I think she was both right and wrong. She was right because by doing this, she has hurt many of you, all of you in some manner. But she's wrong. You can't judge the pain someone will feel when you leave them, permanently. You can't measure how much they care for, or even love, you. All you know is your pain and I think she realized this as she died. That she was hurting all of us in a way that cannot be healed, that cannot be eased, and that cannot be forgotten."

Tears slipped down the faces of every person there, man and woman. The little girl, Nashi, turned around. The resemblance to both Natsu and Lucy was astonishing. Natsu walked up to Nashi and picked her up, holding her to his shoulder, because he knew that the pain he felt was only secondary to pain of a child that a parent left behind. So he took her in, as his own for she was his own, and taught her to smile again. And in turn, she taught him to smile again, as well as Lisanna and the rest of the guild.

* * *

And one day she had another moment. She faced her aged father as he lay in the hospital, dying, and forgave her mother finally. Her mother, never forgotten, never forsaken, and never more loved than when she left. She forgave her mother in that moment because she understood the pain that she must have felt, watching someone so close to her heart so close to death. And as Nashi whispered her final goodbye to Natsu, she cried. Because in that moment, that moment in which time froze and her heart seemed to stop and she wondered what impact she had had on the world as she stared death in the face, she realized how much her mother had loved her and loved this man.

And then the moment passed, and she had her own family, and she carried on the tradition of explaining what a moment truly is.

It's a small pocket of time, in which everything stops and is forgotten. The wind stops, the insects are silent, and your heart freezes. In that moment, one of several things occurs. You realize how much goodness and love is actually in the world. You decide whether or not to give your life so that someone else, who you may love or hate, can live. You are so happy, so joyous, that everything slows and prolongs that moment forever. You may have many of these moments, many times when everything slows down. Lucy of Fairy Tail gave her life for one such moment, Nashi forgave her mother for such a moment, and Natsu Dragneel realized, in such a moment, that he was forgiven. Always and completely forgiven. And that's all that mattered.

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_This was so rushed at the end. I probably should have ended with Lucy's death, but oh well. Please review and let me know what you think cuz this is SO DEPRESSING I CRIED! Sorry to any NaLu fans (like myself) but I did have Natsu marry Lisanna in this. And because the plot is so vague, let me explain:_

**_Lucy and Natsu, at some point, slept together, thus Lucy's child. This happened four years before her death. Sometime after said event, Natsu and Lisanna started going out and got engaged. Saddened, Lucy left the guild, but stayed nearby since she still loved Natsu very much. Skip to four years later and Lucy hears Natsu and Lisanna getting attacked by a dark mage of some sort. She runs to them and sees Natsu is about to die, so she takes the blow, thus dying herself. She asks Natsu, in her last moments, to take care of Nashi. Nashi already knows Natsu is her dad and he figures it out pretty quick too (how many people have pink hair? Oh yeah, just him). At the funeral, Nashi gives a speech. Skip to Natsu's death bed, Nashi finally forgives her mom for dying so soon. Basically this ends with Nashi carrying on the new tradition of telling the story of a moment and what it can do to you._**

_Please review! :)_


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